


Paternal Protective Instincts

by Star_Going_Supernova



Series: how Maddie acquired a second dad [5]
Category: Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019)
Genre: (this is like the fifth time i've used a character relationship tag that doesn't exist yet), Dadzilla, Fluff, Gen, Kidnapping, Light Angst, Protective Godzilla, death by titan, nothing comes of it don't worry, sort of implied/suspected human experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26383357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: He’d never had someone wrap their arm around his shoulders and shove a cloth over his face. He’d never lost a fight to chloroform. He’d never woken up bound and gagged in an empty room.All in all, he couldn’t say he was enjoying the experience.(In which Mark Russell gets kidnapped, and this somehow isn't the worst part of his day.)
Relationships: Godzilla (Legendary | MonsterVerse) & Madison Russell, Godzilla (Legendary | MonsterVerse) & Mark Russell, Madison Russell & Mark Russell
Series: how Maddie acquired a second dad [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542760
Comments: 35
Kudos: 98





	Paternal Protective Instincts

**Author's Note:**

> This started as just a kidnapping story, and then the characters revolted and forced me to add plot. So there’s plot now. 
> 
> This was requested by Elsie on tumblr, who wanted main character Mark, kidnapping, and Godzilla coming to the rescue! I know this series already has a kidnapping story, but this just fit too well here for me not to include it. 
> 
> Hope y’all enjoy!

Mark had never been kidnapped before. He’d never been snatched from the grocery store parking lot late at night, in the process of making an emergency milk run because sometimes a man needs a nice cold bowl of cereal. He’d never had someone wrap their arm around his shoulders and shove a cloth over his face. He’d never lost a fight to chloroform. He’d never woken up bound and gagged in an empty room.

All in all, he couldn’t say he was enjoying the experience.

Stuck in the dim room, he could do little else but sit there and suffer through the panicked questions making their rounds through his head.

Who had kidnapped him? What did they want? Would they go after Maddie? Had anyone realized he was missing? What were they going to do with—or _to_ —him?

He pulled ineffectually at the scratchy rope keeping his wrists secured to the chair’s armrests. He tried to rock the chair they’d left him slumped over in, but it was too heavy and his ankles were tied to the legs, giving him no opportunity to gain leverage. He wiggled his mouth and attempted to loosen the duct tape secured cheek to cheek.

Nothing, on all counts.

Mark huffed through his nose. Though there was no way to tell exactly how long it’d been since he’d groggily emerged from unconsciousness, it felt like it’d been ages.

His nerves were understandably shot. The anticipation was _awful,_ especially when he was faced with so many unknowns. This was not a waiting game he wanted anything to do with.

Tilting his head back, Mark considered the sole bare bulb in the room. It wasn’t particularly bright, and it flickered at random intervals. It sat almost perfectly above him in a dirty ceiling. The room lacked any windows, and had only a single door, which was at his back.

Yet another thing he wasn’t a fan of.

The walls were grayish and stained. One of the corners was moldy. You couldn’t have paid him to touch the carpet with a bare hand. It _squished_ beneath his shoes.

He jerked in place when the door loudly popped open behind him. He craned his neck to see who had entered his prison.

It was a man, who wasted no time in walking around to stand in front of Mark. He was wearing a gray jumpsuit, thick gloves, and a ski mask. With the exception of his eyes, the man was left with no discernible features, and with how poor the lighting was, Mark couldn’t even tell his eye color.

In a rough voice, the man spoke as if he was reciting lines. “Mark Russell. If you do as we say, you will not be harmed. Failure to cooperate will be dealt with harshly. You have one hour to consider.”

And then he left. Mark tried to ask, “Consider what?” but the duct tape did its job.

He was once again left alone in the dingy room.

Mark was pretty sure an hour hadn’t gone by yet when the door opened again. This time, he stayed staring straight ahead instead of struggling to see over his shoulder.

Given he was expecting the same man from before, he was entirely shocked when a woman appeared before him. She was dressed practically, like any Monarch field agent he’d ever seen. Her wavy, reddish-brown hair was cut just above her shoulders.

“Dr. Russell,” she said, pleasantly enough. Mark tried to subtly lean away from her. She smiled at him. “I do apologize for my colleague earlier. Such stiff delivery, and no imagination. And really, I’m sure you like a good mystery as much as the next person, but what’s the point of demanding your cooperation if you don’t know the details?” Her smile never faltered.

Mark didn’t bother trying to talk through the tape. The woman frowned and stepped forward. “Well, now, we can’t have that,” she said as she carefully removed the tap. “It takes two to have a proper conversation, wouldn’t you agree?”

Luckily, she didn’t seem to be looking for an answer, because she flicked the tape aside and picked right up where she left off. “What I need from you is simple, Dr. Russell: refrain from causing trouble, and we’ll get along just fine.”

“But what do you _want?_ What could you possibly think you’ll gain from kidnapping me?” Mark asked.

“I want… answers,” the woman said. “I’m running a bit of an experiment, and have others in mind that I’ll need your assistance with.”

Mark sighed and refrained from rolling his eyes. He had a good guess where this was going.

“You see, you are not the first person from Monarch I have had kidnapped.”

Now _that_ admittedly got his attention. Kidnappers usually didn’t remain free to keep kidnapping. And to target the same organization more than once, especially one as large and widespread as Monarch?

Who _was_ this lady?

She kept going, her eyes glinting. “You are, in fact, the fourth. For the purpose of this experiment, there will be a fifth and final member of Monarch taken, this one in—” She checked her watch— “roughly eighteen hours. Do you know why I chose that number, Dr. Russell?”

“You’re superstitious?” he guessed sarcastically.

“No,” she said with a smile. “Because six hours from now, you’ll have been officially missing for forty-eight. We kept you unconscious for quite some time, you see. And then, once another twelve hours have gone by, we’ll be reuniting you with your daughter, Madison.”

Mark went very, very still. “You leave her out of this,” he growled lowly. “Whatever you want, you take it from me and you don’t touch her, you hear me! Don’t touch my daughter!” he shouted, yanking futilely at his restraints.

The woman watched him with careful interest. “You react violently on the presumption that we’ll harm her. We will not.”

“You think that matters? You think I’ll calm down if you, who _clearly_ doesn’t care about _morals_ , tell me that you won’t hurt my daughter when you kidnap her? The hell’s wrong with you!”

“A typical response from a father,” she muttered. “Clearly exhibiting fury, provoked by the mere possibility of danger. Even with no proof that Madison would face anything more harrowing than being carefully subdued, he jumps right to a worst case scenario.”

“Are you insane?” Mark demanded. “What sort of game are you playing? No proof? I think the act of kidnapping is proof enough you piece of—”

“Your reaction has been noted,” she spoke over his continuing threats. “Thank you for your participation in this experiment.”

She nodded at someone behind him, and it was only then, far too late, that Mark realized they weren’t the only ones in the room anymore. A masked man identical to the one before silently stepped around the chair and smoothly injected something into the crook of Mark’s elbow.

“Preparations are complete, Dr. Powell,” the man said once he’d removed the needle. “We’re ready to depart when you are.”

Everything started to go hazy for Mark, and he struggle to keep his head upright as the two kidnappers went to leave the room, without paying any attention to him. The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was the woman, Dr. Powell, responding, “Tell the captain to set sail. It’s time to increase the difficulty of this challenge.”

• • •

When Mark came around again, the room was entirely unchanged. The only difference between then and now was the low rumble of a large ship’s engines. They were on a boat, and considering how little rocking there was, it was probably a large one. A freighter, or something equally sturdy.

His tongue felt heavy and his mouth dry. His neck hurt from the way it’d been hanging forward, and his wrists felt raw.

He tried to move, just for the hell of it. There was exactly enough slack in his bonds as there had been earlier—none. Mark bit back his frustration and tried not to think about Dr. Powell’s words.

Unfortunately, with nothing else to occupy his attention, he kept returning to their brief interaction. What did her experiment involve? Her last words, about it being a challenge—did that mean she was testing Monarch? And now they were dragging his daughter into it.

Gripping the chair arms too tightly, he grit his teeth and glared at the wall in front of him. Why couldn’t they just leave Maddie alone? And the way she’d, what, taken verbal notes on his reaction was bizarre, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He didn’t want his daughter anywhere near this psychopath.

Time passed slowly, and the longer he was left to the mercy of his own thoughts, the more gruesome scenarios he dreamed up. A million and one bad things could happen to his daughter, could be happening at that very moment, and here he was, absolutely helpless to do a single thing about it.

For once, the thought of Godzilla provided comfort. He’d keep her safe, and if they did manage to steal her away, Mark could rest assured that Godzilla would find her. He had before, after all.

Though it eased his tormented mind, he still didn’t want Maddie getting kidnapped at all. Unfortunately, if this Dr. Powell had gotten away with it three times before, and now with Mark as well, then he didn’t have much hope.

His stomach ached with hunger, and he wondered how long he’d been sitting here for. With the two bouts of unconsciousness and the complete lack of windows, he had no way to even guess how long they’d been holding him for. If Dr. Powell hadn’t been lying, they’d had him for nearly two days, maybe longer by now.

He huffed and looked down at his arms. The tiny dot from the needle was still there in the bend of his left elbow. But a glance to his right arm showed more little marks. They hadn’t been there before, he was certain of that.

Which meant they’d hooked him up to something while he was out. If he was lucky, it was just something to keep him alive and unconscious. If he was unlucky…

Mark shook his head and swallowed down his fear.

It was a nasty mix to be feeling—burning rage and sickening dread and sharp tension. He absently drummed his fingers against the chair. His hands were trembling faintly.

The sudden sound of the door opening startled him. After however-long of hearing only whatever noise he made himself and the distant rumble of an engine, it was jarring. He didn’t even have time to consider twisting around when Dr. Powell entered his line of sight. She was closely followed by a second man.

This guy was huge, and especially wide in the shoulders. Just like all the others, he was masked. Mark couldn’t have cared less about his state of dress, however, since the man was carrying Maddie.

Her hands were handcuffed behind her back, and a long length of duct tape was twisted around her ankles, binding them together. She was unconscious, her head lolling against the man’s shoulder as he walked.

Mark sucked in a furious breath, but the myriad of words he wanted to say got all tangled up together as he glowered at Dr. Powell. She paid him no mind, instead watching as her goon deposited Maddie on the nasty floor. He was, at the very least, careful not to let her head smack into anything.

“You see, Dr. Russell,” Dr. Powell said with a bright smile. “Here’s Madison, safe and sound. Perfectly unharmed. She’ll wake up soon, perhaps feeling a little off, but she’ll be better in no time.”

“You can’t possibly think you’re going to get away with this,” Mark snarled, finally finding his voice. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you’re in real trouble now.”

“Oh?” she said. “I’ve already told you, you are not the first. Why would I fear Monarch now?”

Glancing down at his daughter, Mark shook his head. “It’s not Monarch you have to worry about.” He offered her a fake smile. “How fast does this boat go?”

“I’m afraid I’m not sure as to the exact number. We are making excellent time, however. Why?”

“Would you say we’re going fast enough to outrun a Titan?” He let his grin turn a little mocking.

Dr. Powell recoiled the slightest bit. Her expression twisted slightly, something flashing in her eyes. With a tiny crease in her forehead, Dr. Powell sent one last, lingering glance at Maddie before leaving.

That it didn’t sound like she even locked the door behind her was just salt in the wound.

“Maddie?”

She didn’t move. She was breathing, though, and didn’t bear any obvious injuries. Not that it would make him trust Dr. Powell. Even Jonah hadn’t physically harmed Maddie.

For the first time in Mark’s life, he found himself desperately hoping Godzilla would show him up. His own hands were tied, literally, and with that talk about experiments and stuff, Mark wanted his daughter on the other side of the planet from these people.

He didn’t know how Godzilla kept such precise track of where Maddie was, but he was feeling pretty grateful for it now, whereas it’d only been a source of unease before. He’d find her, find them, and he wouldn’t even have to trample any buildings to do so.

They were on a boat, presumably in the ocean. A lake or something might pose a problem, but given how big the ship sounded and felt, he was willing to bet it was the former. This was Godzilla’s element.

Depending on how long ago Maddie had disappeared, and whether Monarch could or would tell Godzilla if he wasn’t already aware, Mark was sure it wouldn’t be long until their kidnappers’ time was up.

Mark hadn’t been lying, after all. Dr. Powell was in real trouble now. She’d had the one person Godzilla could—and always would—track brought to her.

He chuckled. She’d realize her mistake, but it’d be too late by then.

Maddie groaned and shifted. She came awake slowly, clearly groggy and confused. Her eyes landed on him, and she stared for a few seconds before her brain seemed to catch up with what she was seeing. Her arms jerked in a way that likely meant she’d pulled at her cuffed wrists.

“Ugh,” she groaned. “Not again.” She stuck her tongue out. “I hate how chloroform makes me feel afterward.”

“And I hate that you have enough experience with it to be able to say that,” Mark said. “How you feeling, kiddo?”

“Gross,” she answered. Her nose crinkled. “This carpet smells worse than Godzilla’s breath after he’s eaten.”

“I bet,” he said, eyeing the mold and other discolored spots. “Try not to think about it. We’ll hose you down later.”

She grinned briefly. “So. Where are we?”

“On a boat, probably a freighter or something. Courtesy of our kidnapper, Dr. Powell.”

“And what do they want?”

“To do an experiment or something. She wasn’t super clear. Seemed really interested in how I reacted when she told me they were going to kidnap you, though.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “How long was I out?”

“I don’t know how long they had you, but it’s only been a few minutes from when they brought you in.” Mark twisted to glance back at the door. “They’re not exactly keeping me updated.”

Her silence drew his attention back to her. “I’m glad you’re okay, Dad,” she said quietly. “No one could figure anything out.”

“I’m sorry you were worried, Maddie. They haven’t hurt me or anything, I promise. We’ll get out of this soon.” He tried to smile reassuringly at her.

“How do you know?”

“Regardless of my many issues with him, I know I can at least count on Godzilla to not be far behind when it comes to someone taking you.”

A cheeky smile lit up her face. “So you admit he’s not all that bad.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“He was worried when we realized something had happened to you, y’know. I think if he had a way to find you, he would’ve.”

All right, that was… flattering. Their “rivalry,” as some people at Castle Bravo called it, apparently had exceptions for both of them. Maybe the old Titan really wasn’t all that bad.

“We’ll be home before you know it, kiddo,” he said, hoping to change the topic. Maddie would never let it go if she knew what he was thinking. “Just stay calm, keep a cool head—”

“No offense, Dad, but which of us has more experience with this?”

Mark hung his head and took a deep breath. That wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted to be reminded of right now.

“Sorry,” she added.

“You’re forgiven. If at any point, however, you need more than one hand to count these incidents, we’re going to have a problem.”

Before she could respond—he could already hear her snark about how it wasn’t _her_ fault she was a target—the door popped back open.

“Ah, Madison. It’s good to see you awake,” Dr. Powell said before even entering Mark’s line of sight. As a result, he was able to witness the series of expressions flash over his daughter’s face.

Confusion and surprise and discomfort and something he might almost call distress.

Dr. Powell rounded Mark’s chair and crouched down between him and Maddie, which immediately made him wish his legs weren’t bound, so he could give her a nice kick to the back of her head.

“You look well,” Dr. Powell said warmly, as if she was an old family friend who hadn’t seen them in a while. “I must apologize for the scare my colleague gave you. There doesn’t seem to be any bruising, at least.” She reached out, looking like she was going to grasp Maddie’s chin to tilt her head around.

“Don’t touch her!” Mark growled, thumping against his chair as much as his retrains allowed.

She dropped her hand with a sigh. “It’s rude to interrupt,” she said over her shoulder, for the first time, sounding cold. Mark fumed, but unwilling to provoke her when she was so close to Maddie, he fell silent as she continued, “Now, I’m sure you’re wondering what’s going on, Madison. As I explained to your father, I’m directing an experiment. I’ve chosen the two of you to assist me with it.”

“What sort of experiment?” Maddie hesitantly asked. Her distress hadn’t faded, though she was hiding it well enough. It looked like she was trying to lean away from Dr. Powell.

Mark couldn’t see their kidnapper’s face, but he heard the smile in her answer. “Nothing you need to worry about. Your presence here is enough, for now. Should we require more… active participation, we’ll let you know.”

“You’re insane,” Mark hissed. Her choice of words made it sound like they were willing participants, and it made him sick.

“I’m very glad you could be part of this, Madison,” Dr. Powell said, completely ignoring Mark. “I have great faith in the outcome of this experiment. The results so far are… promising.”

The room fell silent, which was almost worse. Mark grew impossibly more tense in his chair with every second that Dr. Powell stayed so close to his bound daughter. Finally, at long last, she stood.

“I must say goodbye for now,” Dr. Powell told them with a pleasant smile. She looked back and forth between them, but if the lack of response threw her off, she didn’t show it. “I will see you both again soon enough.”

And with that, she left, the door once more left unlocked. Mark twisted around to stare at if for a second, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He couldn’t forget about the experiments she’d mentioned.

When it became clear no one else was coming in, not yet, he resettled himself and focused on Maddie again.

“Hey,” he called over to his daughter, who was trapped in a thousand-yard stare. “You all right, kiddo?”

“Yeah. I just—I don’t like her,” Maddie said, looking very uncomfortable. “She… she reminded me of Mom. When she was, like, trying to rationalize waking up the Titans and all.”

It hit him like a ton of bricks the moment she said it. Though her hair color and face shape were off, the resemblance to the late Emma Russell was uncanny.

Her attitude, though. That was the most unnerving part. Emma’s clinical explanation after Antarctica still haunted his dreams. The way she had so casually talked about decimating the human race. Dr. Powell, with her talk of experiments and nonchalant approach to kidnapping, was a shudder-inducing reflection of that speech.

His face must have broadcasted his horror, because Maddie snorted and started to wiggle. “You mean you didn’t notice?”

“No,” Mark said faintly. “But I see it now. The… detachment, I guess.”

Maddie folded herself in half, nearly face-planting into the floor.

“What are you doing?”

“This!” she answered triumphantly as she rolled a little, maneuvering her cuffed hands below her tucked-up feet. She raised them in the air as she sat up. “It’ll make it easier to untie you. G can do a lot, but I think _that_ might be a little out of his skillset.”

Without bothering to try and free her own legs, she shifted around onto her knees and shuffled over to his chair.

“You want to take bets on how long it’ll take Godzilla to find us?” she asked.

Mark thought for a minute. It was bound to take some time, but Godzilla wouldn’t be hindered by things that would slow humans down, like getting permission. “I’m gonna say… an hour. You?”

“Hm, I think it’ll be less than that. Maybe only—”

They both yelped as the ship suddenly tilted wildly with an ominous groan. A reassuringly familiar roar filled the air.

Maddie laughed as she righted herself and went back to picking at Mark’s restraints. “Never mind, I guess. Sounds like someone’s pissed,” she said, sounding much too happy about that.

The rope grew loose enough for Mark to wiggle his wrist free. Maddie shuffled over to his other hand and he leaned over to start working on his ankles. “The cuffs are gonna be a problem,” he grunted.

“They’ll only be as much of a problem as I let them be,” she responded. They finished at the same time, and Maddie sat back so he could get his other leg unbound.

He kneeled down once he was done and carefully unwrapped the duct tape. She winced a little as he pulled it off her bare legs.

“Of all the days to wear shorts,” she joked.

Mark snorted. “At least the door’s unlocked. That’s one thing in our favor.” He tossed the tape aside and stood, groaning as his joints popped.

The ship listed again, nearly knocking them both off balance. He grabbed Maddie’s upper arms to steady her, since she couldn’t quite do so by herself with the cuffs. “You good?” he asked.

“Yep. I don’t suppose you know how to get outside?”

He slipped up to the door and cautiously opened it. “Nope. I woke up in here, same as you.” There was no in the hallway beyond, so he stepped out. Everything looked the same in either direction, and the only indication of there being other people onboard were the distant screams he could hear. He turned in that direction and tried to listen.

“Hey!” someone down the hall behind him shouted.

Mark spared a glance backward see a large and—you guessed it—identically masked man coming towards him. He took off in the opposite direction, hoping Maddie would stay behind and make her escape while he led this guy away.

He didn’t make it far before hearing a choked cry. He skidded to a stop and whirled around.

Maddie was on the man’s back, the chain of her handcuffs pulled tight around his neck. He stumbled, trying to pull the chain away, but with the weight of a teenage girl on the other end, he didn’t stand a chance. Too late did he try and knock her into the wall, because by then, he was falling to his knees.

Mark watched, gaping, as the jumpsuited henchman fell face first into the floor with a last strangled wheeze. Maddie slipped her cuffs over his head and popped up like it was nothing. The man didn’t move.

“C’mon!” she cried, grabbing his wrist as she ran past him. “I don’t really want to be lost in a hallway when the ship inevitably starts sinking!”

Snapping his jaw shut, he hurried to keep up.

After going through a few doors, they finally emerged onto an outdoor walkway that overlooked most of the front half of the ship, which seemed to be a freighter, like he had guessed.

It wasn’t doing so well. Water was pooling on the main deck below them. Everything in sight was an absolute mess of scrambling people and broken bits of this or that.

For just a moment, he saw jagged spines breach the surface beyond the bow and slice through the waves before vanishing. The ship shuddered again, forcing them to grab onto the railing to keep from falling over.

Down below, someone shrieked. “We’re taking on water down below! That thing hit us with its tail!”

“There’s a _hole!_ ” someone else wailed.

“Nice one, G,” Maddie said. And to Mark, “Can you see him?”

Mark scanned the surrounding water. It was dark out, making it hard to see anything below the surface. He didn’t have to look for long, though, because only a moment later, Godzilla surged up out of the ocean with a deep growl.

He planted one hand on the deck, making the back half lift out of the water, and used the other to gouge the side. Roaring, he submerged again, only to ram into the ship.

Clinging tightly to the railing, Mark tried to swallow his heart back down from where it was making a valiant effort to escape up his throat.

Maddie laughed again and went running down the walkway to the closest side of the freighter.

“How are you not falling over?” he hoarsely asked, stumbling after her. The floor jumped up and down beneath him, suffering from Godzilla’s fury.

“You get used to stuff like this when you walk next to Godzilla!” she called over her shoulder. “I used to trip all the time because of how he made the ground shake.”

A beam of atomic breath sliced up through the deck to Mark’s left. He stared at the cut as the small detached piece quickly began to sink. Their side of the boat tilted in a highly distressing way.

There were a lot of people screaming right now. He swallowed and caught up to Maddie, who was leaning over the ocean. If it weren’t for how tense he felt, he would have pulled her back over the edge, but as it was, he could barely force his feet to move.

Mark wasn’t much of a monster-movie guy. Nevertheless, the sort of movie clip where some horrible sea creature—whether it was a giant shark or otherwise—surges up out of the waves on a direct collision course with some poor, unsuspecting human… he’d seen those before. He could picture them somewhat clearly.

Even knowing Godzilla would never hurt Maddie didn’t stop his heart from doing triple-time when the Titan burst out of the ocean right beneath his daughter. He could have gone the rest of his life without ever seeing a real life version of one of those scenes.

He clutched at his shirt over his heart and tried to breathe normally as Godzilla gently bumped Maddie with his snout before leaning back with a rumble.

And his daughter, his reckless, fearless daughter, only laughed brightly and leaned farther out over the edge.

“You’re gonna give me a heart attack or two, or twenty, one of these days,” Mark grumbled.

Maddie either ignored his oft-repeated accusation or didn’t hear him—it very well could have been the latter, given the screaming humans and rumbling Titan. 

“We’re not waiting for an Osprey, are we?” he asked, finally daring to venture closer to the edge.

“I mean…” Maddie glanced pointedly at the section of freighter currently underwater. “ _I’m_ not, but if that’s what you want…”

He sighed. “If he dumps me in the water, you’re grounded.”

“Wha—why would you punish me?” his absolutely insane daughter asked as she scrambled over the railing to sit on top of it. She wordlessly raised her cuffed hands, and Godzilla narrowed his eyes.

“I can’t very well ground him, now can I?” Mark demanded. He wheezed to himself as Godzilla leaned down and presented his half-open mouth to Maddie, who snagged the chain around the tip of one of his deadly sharp teeth.

The pitiful length of metal snapped in half at the slightest pressure. Mark could relate.

“That’s fair,” Maddie said begrudgingly. Mark had no idea what she was talking about, all vestiges of their conversation wiped away at seeing a Titan’s mouth so close to his daughter.

“Yep,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t notice his lapse in existing.

Godzilla lowered his head and Maddie hurled herself off the railing at him. And then she had the gall to look back at him, ever so expectant.

He mentally shrugged, because there was no way he was going down with the ship, and followed after her.

• • •

Later, they’d be briefed on how Monarch had showed up only a few minutes after Godzilla whisked them away. They’d been in time to rescue everyone on the sinking freighter, save those who had already died. Quite a few people were left with injuries of varying seriousness.

The one person who wasn’t found was Dr. Powell. She’d gotten away.

And based on evidence they recovered before the ocean completely consumed the boat, she had gotten what she wanted.

The experiment she’d mentioned had been on Godzilla, not any of the humans she’d kidnapped. They were part of it, but it wasn’t them she was paying attention to. What she wanted, apparently, was information on how humans “rated” on his radar, so to speak.

He hadn’t shown the slightest bit of awareness that Monarch personnel disappeared. This, according to Dr. Powell’s notes, was expected. They’d done a few generic people, and a biologist specifically stationed at Castle Bravo.

It wasn’t until Mark was the one who went missing that he reacted. Her notes used words like _concern_ and _frustration,_ and most concerning, _no aggression yet_. Godzilla had been aware of his disappearance but took no action regarding it.

And then Maddie was taken. Dr. Powell had a field day with her notes then. _High levels of aggression, clear anger, disregard of human lives._

Worse yet, she had information on Maddie’s first kidnapping. She compared Godzilla’s reactions between them, pointing out how he was unwilling to wait for Monarch this time, and how he had used threat displays but no actual shows of force during the first incident, which was markedly different from this one.

“She wanted us to find this,” someone said. Mark couldn’t tell who, not over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. “She was watching everything happen, right to the end, and she left this for us to find.”

“Why was this her experiment? What was she trying to figure out?” he asked. Some part of him was immensely grateful that Maddie, or even himself, wasn’t the subject of her interest. Another part of him was terrified about why it was Godzilla instead.

“We don’t know. We’ll be keeping an eye out for her, Dr. Russell, I assure you. They always slip up. We’ll catch her.”

Mark looked over to Maddie, who had remained mostly silent this whole meeting. She was intently focused on a paper in her hand.

“You all right?” he asked.

She slowly turned her head to face him, clearly biting back laughter. She offered him the sheet of paper.

He took it. It contained more of Dr. Powell’s notes. His eye was drawn to the highlighted part in the center.

_Violent reaction at the potential threat against Madison Russell. Expected, given history, but the exhibited fury was beyond initial prediction. Worth further exploration. Maintain caution in future encounters, under the assumption that the subject will prove dangerous when provoked._

Frowning, he shook his head. “It’s just more about Godzilla.”

Smothering a smile into her palm, Maddie leaned over and pointed at the top section, which he’d entirely skipped over. His gaze landed on his own name as she sat back, visibly waiting for his reaction.

“It’s about you,” she said. “She’s comparing how you reacted to how G reacted.”

At the very bottom of the page, it read: _Experiment to be expanded on, and continued at a later date. Additional data required._

The “experiment” part was _highly_ concerning, but Maddie’s release of her laughter kept him from spiraling into a crisis. “I think it’s impressive, honestly,” she said, smiling. “Your dad instincts are on par with a Titan's.”

He could already hear the renewal of all those joint custody jokes.

But really, there was only one way he could possibly respond to that. “Is Godzilla still here?” he asked, standing. “No reason, of course, certainly not for gloating purposes.”

“Dad!” Maddie groaned after him as he hurriedly ducked into the hallway.

He supposed there were worse things to be compared to than an overprotective Titan. Since he was feeling generous, he might just slip a quick thank you into the smug speech he was already mentally planning.

Godzilla had really come through today, for both of them. Though Mark would never have asked for a Titan to be so protective over his daughter, he found himself… not quite as begrudging about it as he used to be.

Maybe someday, he’d even be able to say he was grateful.

(Certainly never aloud, though, and _definitely_ not in Godzilla or Maddie’s presence. He really wouldn’t ever hear the end of it then.)

**Author's Note:**

> Someday, Mark and Godzilla are going to get over their need to one-up each other, and on that day, Maddie will rue all the teasing she did, because what’s worse than two separate overprotective dads? Two overprotective dads _working together._
> 
> Also, Dr. Powell isn’t caught at the end because I got _attached,_ okay, and I wasn’t ready to discard her. 
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


End file.
